Confessions of Aleister Crowley

507 without object or attachment. I cannot describe the quality of the emancipation given by this most wonderful experience. Aum. It may not at first sight be apparent why this rather silly and commonplace intrigue should merit the attention which I paid it. The reason is this; just as the Master of the Temple is sworn to interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with his soul, so is the Magus to make his every act an expression of his magical formula. Being in course of initiation at the time, I did not realize what was going on. It is only on reflection that I have come to understand that my relations with these two women constituted an ordeal; a test of my fitness for the Grade. It is written "as below, so above"; and my reaction to these women furnished a sure indication of how I should act in the greatest circumstances. For having succeeded in completely harmonizing the various energies of my being, there was no longer any danger that I should regulate my actions by conflicting standards. When therefore I rejected the Snake and chose the Cat, I was affirming {800} 1. I say "a cube"; yet its most salient property was that it was without boundaries. Experience of similar trances is necessary for the understanding of this statement, which is a perfectly proper expression of a perfectly observed fact, despite its intellectual self-contradiction. 2. This was the "mystic name" chosen for herself by the Cat. She had a smattering of theosophy and remembered this as being the name of some "Mahatma". magically that I would insist upon realizing my ideal (most people idealize the real --- which they dare not face) even though I knew it not to exist and was broken-hearted by the continual mockery of the deception. The word of a Magus is always a falsehood. For it is a creative word; there would be no object in uttering it if it merely stated an existing fact in nature. The task of a Magus is to make his word, the expression of his will; come true. It is the most formidable labour that the mind can conceive. Having made this decision, my next task was to cause my word to become flesh. The morning of the fifth Chokmah day was devoted to the begetting of a son. I wanted to fulfil the love which I had found. As before, I understood nothing of this; I simply wanted to have a child by the Cat, and performed a series of Magical Operations with this object. I did not know that I was attempting a physical impossibility. (I must digress to explain that every cause must produce its proper effect; so that, in this case, the son whom I willed to beget came to birth on a plane other than the material.) I must have been very blind indeed not to recognize my true situation, if for no other reason than the following. The celebration of the autumnal equinox coincided with an Operation with the object above stated. It was the last of this series of Operations, though I had no reason whatever for stopping, and only discovered the fact, much to my surprise, long after. Now, the word of this equinox was "Nebulae", which evidently points to the conditions which result in the birth of a star. What I had really done was therefore to beget a Magical Son. So, precisely nine months afterwards, that is, at the summer solstice of 1916, Frater O.I.V. (the motto of C. Stansfeld Jones as a probationer) entirely without my knowledge became a Babe of the Abyss. I failed completely to understand the telegrams in which he announced the fact. His action was unprecedented in the whole history of Magick. It was utterly beyond my imagination to conceive of such an occurrence. He, on the other hand, while ignorant of my Operation in the autumn, understood perfectly at the time what he was doing; that he was being born as "The Child" predicted in The Book of the Law. This interpretation does not rest upon any arbitrary ideas, either on his part or mine. The Book of the Law speaks of this "Child" as "One", as if with absolute vagueness. But the motto which Frater O.I.V. had taken on becoming a neophyte was "Achad" which is the Hebrew word for "One". It is further predicted that this "Child" shall discover the Key of the interpretation of the Book itself, and this I had been unable to do. (The Book asserts that I should